Alternative Normality
by vanillafire
Summary: The worst thing about having indecent dreams about aniki is not that Yuuta's starting to enjoy them [although that's bad too], but that Shuusuke won't yet let him know if they'll ever come true! Fujicest.
1. Chapter 1

﻿"Yuuta, before you see Shuusuke, you should know that he's not in the best of moods..." This was the most unusual start to a phone call Yuuta had ever had with his older sister, although far from the most unusual he'd ever had from his family as a whole. "I've just dropped him off outside your school, so I have to be quick, but he has something to tell you, and I need you to not act too disappointed when you hear it, okay? He's really... angry, at the moment, and seeing you disappointed will just upset him more, although I know he won't show it. Can you do that for me?"

Yuuta managed to respond with a slightly confused-sounding "yes", after nodding into the receiver and then realising he couldn't be seen. Yumiko then hung up, and Yuuta was left wondering exactly what they'd been talking about. His brother was coming to visit him this afternoon (quite why he'd insisted on it, Yuuta didn't know, because he was coming home for the summer holidays next weekend, but it was better than being dragged to the TV lounge with Yanagisawa to watch soap operas all afternoon, as so often happened on a Saturday), but he hadn't mentioned any big announcement he was going to make, or really anything at all – he'd just said he wanted to see him again, which was bad enough really, because it never sounded _normal_ when his brother said it like that.

Whether he actually minded his brother talking to him like that or not was entirely beside the point, of course.

If Yumiko had just dropped aniki off, then it would be only a matter of minutes before he arrived at Yuuta's door, knocking with the most obtrusive unobtrusive knock Yuuta had ever heard. It was designed to sound as innocuous as possible, but there was _something_ instilled in it that made Yuuta leap to attention even before hand met wood, which he'd long ago stopped believing was impossible. Yuuta had long ago stopped believing _anything_ was impossible, because it was damaging to his pride to be proved wrong time and time again.

Everything was neat and tidy, right? His desk was a bit of a disaster area, but what schoolboy's wasn't? Apart from Mizuki's, of course (unless pink and purple fluffy feathered pens and peacock feathers everywhere counted as a disaster, which they undoubtedly did), and aniki's, because everything of aniki's was neat and tidy and annoyingly pristine; even his mess was well-ordered, if he ever made any. It wasn't healthy, surely?

Oh, he better hide the stuffed rabbit poking out from under the bed covers, as no one needed to know that he still slept with Bun-Buns. It was embarrassing enough even before people found out that its name sounded like a cheap stripper. Why had no one stopped him when he was three? For the same reason Shuusuke still had a bear called Mr Snuggles, he supposed, but even then, his brother had had better naming sense than him, because at least _his_ toy didn't sound like it had been brought in off the streets. Or maybe it did, if you thought about it very carefully, but Yuuta really didn't like the idea of aniki canoodling with _anyone_ named 'Mr Snuggles'. He also really didn't like thinking about this at _all_, because now he was going to feel weird the next time he did see Shuusuke's teddy bear, wherever he kept it these days. He didn't think that aniki would still sleep with a stuffed toy, but, as he was already aware, he was wrong about these things all the time.

Secreting his rabbit in a desk drawer (under the bed was too obvious, and besides, it was possible that Atsushi-senpai would come in later and root around under there if he got desperate enough), Yuuta dusted himself down – why was he dusting himself down for his brother? Must be all that thinking of Mr Snuggles – and then unintentionally threw himself sideways in the direction of the door as the beginning of Shuusuke's not-really-a-knock rippled through the space-time continuum and infused itself into his brain. As long as nothing else that aniki did could make his body act in weird ways, Yuuta was fine with it, really. Living at St Rudolph accustomed you to having out of body experiences.

Opening the door, Yuuta wondered exactly what he was going to say to his brother. If he was angry, as Yumiko had said, then how could he best calm him down, or make him feel better? It hadn't sounded as if aniki was angry at _him_ (could that ever happen? It would be the day that Yumiko married Mizuki-senpai if it did...), so at least that was good, because Yuuta really couldn't think of anything he'd done or said this week that had the potential to have tipped his brother over the edge, but it meant that he was now entering dangerous territory, with feelings and careful conversation and a soft manner, which was entirely Shuusuke's domain. All the rest of Yuuta's friends punched walls when they were angry. Except Kaneda, who now tended to use Akazawa-buchou as his personal shouting wall. Yuuta knew this because everyone else in the dormitory knew it as well. It was hard not to. It was just a shame, really, that he never shouted anything entertaining, and that Akazawa was actually secretly understanding.

"Yuuta - so eager to see me, you opened the door before I knocked? Mmn, we're going to have fun this afternoon..."

Aniki didn't _look_ angry, or even upset. In fact, he looked... well, he was looking at Yuuta in such a way that made his cheeks flush just on instinct. Maybe there was surgery he could have to stop this happening.

"But you _did_ knock... didn't you?" Yuuta decided it was easier to just give up while he was behind, and ushered his brother into his room, closing the door behind them. "Er, make yourself at home..." he said, as aniki was already walking over to his desk. Why was he looking over there? Did he know his sleep-mate was hidden in one of the drawers? Was he jealous of it? Aniki had made no secret of the fact he wanted to sleep with him (Yuuta always felt uneasy when aniki was ambiguous like that), and it would be terrible if fur started to fly.

"You kept the love letters I sent you..." Shuusuke said, sounding pleased, holding them out in his hand like shining trophies after having locked in on them through the towering piles of books and papers and videogames.

Not Bun-Buns, then.

"It would have been rude to throw them away..." Yuuta stuttered, embarrassed that he hadn't thought to hide those too, and embarrassed that he'd only kept them out on his desk so that he could think more carefully about them, which was nonsensical, because they'd only been sent as some sort of weird joke, hadn't they?

"Mmn, you're a good boy, aren't you, Yuuta?"

Yuuta thought it best not to answer this, and instead brought into play a masterful diversion. "Er, why are you here, anyway? I'm coming home in a week, and then you can read me the letters in person."

His brain shook a fist internally at his mouth. Why did he lose all power of sensible speech on occasions like this!

Instead of capitalising on Yuuta's slip-up, though, Shuusuke merely went quiet for a moment, and then said, "Actually, I have something to tell you." 


	2. Chapter 2

﻿_"Actually, I have something to tell you."_? Yumiko had been right, aniki _was_ angry. He'd have played around with it a lot more before telling him, if it had been something that mattered less, or that had been good news. Yuuta wished that Yumiko had told him what it _was_, because if he had to try his hardest not to look too disappointed at it, then he was in trouble if it was something shocking or upsetting.

"Something to tell me...?" Yuuta ushered his brother to sit down on the bed – it seemed wrong to let him continue standing when he looked so forcedly normal – and momentarily considered putting a brotherly arm around his shoulders until he remembered that, at this point, he wasn't supposed to know that it was bad news. Aniki had seen his arm start to move and then be pulled back, but if there was one good thing about aniki being angry and sad, it was that he usually forgot to smile unsettlingly at all the little things Yuuta found himself doing by accident when he was around him. They _were_ accidents, of course; they just... happened with alarming frequency, that was all.

"Mmn," Shuusuke said, settling himself against the wall, his legs crossed beneath him. "I was waiting until now to tell you, as there was a chance that it wouldn't happen after all, but we got a phone call last night that made it final." Hearing aniki speak coldly was an unhappy experience for Yuuta; his voice was normally full of warmth and mirth, or full of _something_, anyway, and the world felt skewed at a disconcerting angle when that wasn't present. "Father's not coming home for the summer like he said he would, not any of it, and mother's flying out to visit him, for the whole four weeks. I'm sorry, Yuuta."

Although Yuuta had promised to try not to look too disappointed, he couldn't fight the distress that flashed over his face like the beam of a lighthouse; only for a second, but absolutely unmissable. Since their father worked overseas, Yuuta rarely ever got to see him – _aniki_ barely ever got to see him, even though, unlike Yuuta, he still lived at home – and he had really been excited about having a few weeks in the summer to spend with him. He'd been promised tennis matches (his father wasn't very good, but it was the bonding that counted), and fishing trips (Yuuta wasn't very good, but it was the bonding, again, that counted) and movie nights and hikes outside Tokyo - and what made it worse was that he'd been promised all this last holiday too. The feeling that none of this was ever going to happen was slowly starting to creep across his skin, so he tried to banish it in favour of looking as if he didn't care, even though the chance of aniki buying it was probably in the minus figures.

"Where are we going to stay?" Yuuta asked, trying to be as practical as possible under the circumstances. "They can't leave us on our own, can they?" Maybe if they couldn't stay home alone for four weeks, their parents would have to look after them after all...

Shuusuke shifted slightly on the bed. "Yumiko's going to be staying, to make sure we're not misbehaving."

Yuuta mentally added "Which is a pity, as I know how you so enjoy misbehaving" to the end of his brother's sentence, and then wondered why he'd thought it. He must have been compensating for aniki's disquiet. Yes.

"I... guess that works," Yuuta said, trying to turn it over in his mind as he spoke. It was still kind of irresponsible, wasn't it, leaving two junior high school-aged boys to their own devices for an entire month? Yumiko had a job and a boyfriend and couldn't possibly watch them for the whole time.

"It works because we're good children," Shuusuke said, and Yuuta wondered if he'd ever seen his brother look so placidly seething. "And Yumiko is responsible enough to look after us."

Yuuta found himself adding "Do you think we should be bad boys?" to this in his head again, and gave himself a little shake to try to get it to stop. When had he started to anticipate aniki's flirtations? Was that what they were? No, that was stupid. It was just aniki being aniki, and when he wasn't, then there was a hole there that Yuuta felt he had to fill. As long as he wasn't standing in for him out loud, everything was as it should be.

If aniki had noticed his little shake, he chose to say nothing about it. Yuuta searched for something to say that wouldn't make his brother feel any worse, but it was hard, because he wasn't very good at talking about things like this. He didn't even know quite why aniki was so angry, because aniki didn't _do_ things with their father like Yuuta did; aniki never treated his infrequent arrivals with anything other than his own particular brand of cordial welcome, and Yuuta couldn't actually _remember_ any time that aniki had been at all excited, even when they'd been little. Maybe when they'd been little, actually – his memory was blurrier than he'd've liked once he went back further than around eight – but certainly not in the last five years or so. So why was he so angry and upset? He was close to their mother (Yuuta too was sad about her being away, and not just for the food he'd've been greeted with), but it wasn't quite as big a deal as their father not being there either, because mother was _always_ there for the rest of the time and Shuusuke spent a lot of his time talking to her, so it couldn't just be her absence that had flicked the switch marked 'do not touch' inside him. Yuuta felt completely out of his depth here. Why did aniki have to understand him better than he understood aniki?

"Well... you don't have to worry about feeling responsible for me," Yuuta said, trying to relieve the burden that he _did_ know would be making it harder for him. "I won't be any trouble."

Shuusuke looked at him with the eyes he seemed to save only for him (not that he'd ever paid attention to how aniki looked at other people) and seemed to smile despite himself. "That's the only part of this I'm happy about, getting to take care of you, Yuuta. Is that okay with you...?"

"I... suppose so..." Yuuta said, not sure what he really should have said to that, or what he really should have felt at it. It wasn't so unusual, was it, for older brothers to want to take care of their siblings? It didn't feel quite like that, though...

"Then that's good. We can still have a nice holiday, right?"

"I... yes," Yuuta said, still a bit unsettled about the change in circumstances, but trying to sound positive to make aniki feel better. In reality, he wasn't so sure. Because St Rudolph was a boarding school, a large percentage of his friends lived a long way away from Tokyo, so he wouldn't be able to see any of them until school started again, and this suddenly seemed like a much bigger deal now that he wouldn't be seeing his parents either. He had his Game Boy and tennis to play, but... aniki was going to be hanging around the house all the time, if he was taking it upon himself to look after him, and he was going to be lonely without Yuuta to spend time with, so... an entire summer of aniki. Yuuta didn't know how he felt about that just yet. He loved aniki, of course, but he didn't know how long he could take non-stop flirting – when they were on their own all the time with no escape! – before he would find himself begging Yanagisawa-senpai if he could stay at his house for the rest of the holiday, just to stop his cheeks from staying bright red permanently. If you stayed one way all the time and the wind changed, you'd get stuck, and he didn't want to leave his fate in aniki's hands like that! (Yuuta knew it wasn't really true, but neither did he really want to experience a perma-blush as one would a perma-tan.)

Maybe it would be okay, though. Maybe. It depended on what sorts of things aniki felt like doing; Yuuta couldn't picture him going fishing, and the kinds of movies Yuuta liked to watch were, he knew, completely at odds to aniki's (weird) tastes, but maybe they could still go hiking and aniki could take his camera and they'd have a nice time. As long as they didn't get stuck in the wilderness together, anyway. Yuuta didn't know whether he'd actually survive (or want to survive) having to share a sleeping bag with aniki to 'preserve warmth'. It would be worse if aniki didn't wear anything to bed. Not that Yuuta wanted to be thinking about that. Time to change the subject now!

"Are you upset about it?" Yuuta asked the first thing that sprang to mind instead of aniki naked. He was lucky that his word association was being sensible today...

"Not upset, no. Maybe a little disappointed. But I get to spend the summer with my sexy little brother, so it's not too bad for me, hmm?"

"... Sexy...?" Yuuta wished aniki wouldn't look at him like that!

"Do you not think so? I'll have to make a more thorough appraisal later, then."

Oh no.

"Are _you_ upset, though? It's okay to be sad, Yuuta. You can always cry on my shoulder if you need to..."

That would have sounded sarcastic coming from anyone other than aniki. Yuuta almost wished it _had_ been sarcastic, because at least there would have been no ulterior motives that he didn't quite understand.

Remembering what Yumiko had asked of him, Yuuta decided to play down what he was really feeling. He still hadn't worked out quite why aniki was as angry as he was, though he seemed to have calmed down a little since they'd started talking about it, so it seemed better to play it safe.

"I don't need to cry! I'm fine, really I am. I'm disappointed, but there'll definitely be no crying. So you don't need to have your hand on my leg like that...!" That last sentence hadn't been one he'd composed in his head, as the hand had come as a surprise, but it was by far the most sincere line of his not-really-a-speech.

"I was just checking your sexy levels," Shuusuke said, with a carefully innocent smile. "What happens to them when you're sad, that sort of thing."

Yuuta just stared, so Shuusuke continued on. "If it ever starts to get to you, though, you know you can always come to me, right?" It took Yuuta a moment to realise that aniki was talking about their parents and not the putting of his hand on his leg. It had, thankfully, been removed, but his thigh still felt a bit warm and his pulse was still too quick after the shock.

"Er... yes. Yes. I know I always can. Thank you." Yuuta didn't really know what else to say to that. Was it wrong that he was a little bit curious about what happened to his sexy levels when he was genuinely upset? The answer was, of course, 'yes', but it was better than _aniki_ being curious, surely? It had to be. And it had to be better than them checking them together, God forbid.

Aniki seemed to consider him carefully for a few moments, as if to check that he really wasn't fighting back tears, and then he said, "So, are you looking forward to our pyjama parties?"

It took all of Yuuta's self-control to not ask when Yumiko was taking him back home. And damn, the subject had been changed and he still hadn't found out why aniki was angry about what was happening. If he was planning – it was painful even to think it – pyjama parties and sexiness tests, then he couldn't be unhappy about their parents not being there, so what was it?

Once aniki was gone and wasn't threatening to stroke his leg again (he wasn't _actually_ threatening, but Yuuta knew he was thinking about it), he'd devote some time to thinking about it. For now, he had to fight off aniki's plans to play Twister and feed each other fondue... 


	3. Chapter 3

﻿In the five minutes or so before Yumiko was going to arrive to pick Shuusuke up, just as the sun was beginning to set and Yuuta was thinking about what the cafeteria would be serving for dinner that night, Shuusuke said, suddenly:

"Do you love him?"

However he turned it over in his head, Yuuta couldn't make that sound right. "What? Love who? Why? What?" Aniki was weird, asking such a thing just when they'd had a relatively (relatively) incident-free and pleasant afternoon.

"Father. Do you love him?"

Oh. That did make sense, although it would have been better if aniki had just said it in the first place. He didn't normally leave out information unless it suited him, so... had he been thinking about that question a lot today, to have blurted it out like that?

It was a weird question to have been thinking about, though. "Yes, of course I do," Yuuta said. Could there have been any other answer? He was a little bit confused. "Why? Don't... you...?"

Shuusuke shook his head. "No, I don't think I do." He looked like he was reconsidering for a moment, and then he said, as decisively as he ever sounded, "No, I definitely don't."

Yuuta could do nothing but stare. Was... was aniki _shaking_? His shoulders, at least, were trembling unmistakeably, but Yuuta wasn't well-versed enough in the subtleties of body language to know _exactly_ why aniki would be shaking and therefore exactly what he should say in response to something that had shocked him; for it _had_ shocked him. Aniki didn't love their father? _Why_?

That seemed a reasonable question to ask, so Yuuta did. "Why?" And then, "Do you really not? Really?"

"I really don't."

"But... why?" Yuuta couldn't at all understand how someone could not love one of their parents. It was wrong, wasn't it? Disrespectful? It seemed so unlike aniki!

"Why? Saa..." Shuusuke gazed at Yuuta, taking in every feature of his face carefully, before saying, slowly, as if he was choosing every word with great delicacy, "... I don't think I'm ever going to be able to forgive him, for..."

But there then came a knock at the door, and the latter half of aniki's sentence was lost as Yumiko let herself in, and before Yuuta knew it, they had left for home and it was time to go down to dinner.

Aniki had said he'd call him later, with a wink that Yumiko had missed but Yuuta most definitely had not. It worried him that the wink had made him think of his sexy levels again; did aniki really pay attention to things like that? And, more pressingly, did aniki really _think_ things like that? Yuuta didn't like the way his ears went warm whenever he started wondering if aniki actually thought of him as sexy – was he abnormal to react to it with anything but shock or disgust? It was probably a question one of his senpai could answer, but Yuuta didn't think he wanted to ask, as he kind of sort of already knew what they'd say, unless maybe he talked to Kisarazu-senpai, and even then...

Why did aniki always make it impossible to think about anything other than him, even when he wasn't there! He was going to spend all evening wondering whether calling him later meant tonight or sometime tomorrow, and what they'd talk about when aniki did call. Would aniki say strange things again? Would he know that Yuuta was blushing, if he did? That probably wouldn't be good.

Should Yuuta ask what he was going to say about their father before Yumiko interrupted? He really didn't know about that. Maybe he was better off not knowing. In fact, he was definitely better off not knowing, just because it was something to do with aniki, but there was no way he _couldn't_ ask now, especially because he had the impression that Yumiko knew about it too.

Did Yumiko know that aniki kept calling him sexy? Yuuta hoped not. It was the sort of thing that should be kept just between brothers, not that Yuuta wanted it there at all, of course.

Did aniki hope for Yuuta to call him sexy back one day? Yuuta probably hoped not. He was saved from these questions, though, by Mizuki knocking, entering without an answer (Yuuta would have to work on this. What if he'd walked in while aniki had had a hand on his leg?) and then inviting him down to dinner. Yuuta was never so troubled that he lost his appetite, and his stomach approved; all this thinking was tough work, and an afternoon with aniki was enough even on its own to make him go back for seconds. The good thing about St Rudolph was that there was always seconds, even of apple pie. It wasn't his sister's raspberry pie, but Yuuta was happy to take any and all pie that came his way, unless aniki made it for him. It was common sense not to trust food that came from aniki.

In the end, Yuuta did decide against asking about brothers and sexiness, because Mizuki-senpai, he knew, was perceptive enough to see through him even if he posed it as rhetoric, but he thought he was safe with the topic of fathers.

"Mizuki-san," he said, after they'd sat down at Mizuki's favourite table (a small one in the far corner, well out of the way of the louder students) and Mizuki had ceremoniously brought out his own personal ornamental chopsticks. "Why would someone not love their father?"

Mizuki looked thoughtful. "Hmm, many reasons, Yuuta-kun. Why do you ask? Are you having family problems? I'm glad you came to me, if you do. I'll help you with anything I can, you know that, don't you?"

It was unfortunate that Mizuki's last sentence paralleled one of aniki's earlier (why was everyone in his life so very eager to help him with absolutely everything? It seemed strange), as it set Yuuta's mind off in directions he didn't want to return to just yet, but he managed to reel it back in before any outward physical signs manifested themselves embarrassingly.

"Not really problems..." Yuuta said. "Not me, anyway. It's... aniki. He said something today about it. He said – what was it he said – he said that he could never forgive him for something, but he had to go before he explained it."

"That must be troubling for you to think about," Mizuki mused, delicately playing with his rice while Yuuta eyed the pie that was waiting for him; both his and the plate that Mizuki would inevitably give him if he looked doleful enough at having finished his own. Yuuta would never eat dessert first, though, so he could only watch it while he ate, to make sure it didn't disappear anywhere.

Mizuki took a sip of water and then continued. "Family is a complicated thing; I suppose you've already had your share of experiences with that. I... hmm. I cannot profess to have all the answers, but as one who has crossed paths with your brother – don't look at me like that, Yuuta – _as one who has crossed paths with your brother_, I'd perhaps venture that he has no love for those who have maybe done you wrong, be it accidental or otherwise."

Yuuta needed a moment to process that, so he took the biggest mouthful of rice he could manage – which was a surprising amount, and distracted him temporarily by making him wonder how big mouths were actually supposed to be when you were thirteen – and nodded, to acknowledge what Mizuki had said. Conversations at meal times were the best kind: if you had nothing to say, you could eat instead, and nothing was awkward like it was when he was expected to say things when aniki called him sexy, or worse. They were never eating when aniki said things like that, but Yuuta was almost glad, even if it meant uncomfortableness on his part, because that was better – _so_ much better – than their parents being present. But now he was thinking about aniki again!

He swallowed, not quite in panic but not quite ready for it either – he had reflexes that would just _happen_ when he noticed, belatedly, that his thoughts had moved back to his brother. It was something that Mizuki would probably describe as "troubling", if he ever knew about it, which was something that, Yuuta was most sure, would never happen.

"So you think that aniki thinks father has done something bad to me in the past, and that's why he doesn't love him?" 'Troubling' was fast becoming a word that Yuuta identified with. He really couldn't think how this could make sense at all – he'd have noticed if there was something that his father had done wrong, wouldn't he? And if there had been, it would be him who felt resentment, wouldn't it, not aniki? Maybe. Aniki's thought processes were usually strange and unfathomable, but Mizuki-senpai seemed to understand a little better than he did. Mizuki-senpai was older than he was, though.

"I would say that it's a possibility, yes." Mizuki twirled his hair round his finger absent-mindedly as he considered. "There are things we cannot see, and things we do not know, and I would think that, even if you are unable to understand right now" – Yuuta started to say something (how had he known he didn't understand?) but Mizuki cut him off with a wave of his hand – "I can read your face, Yuuta" – and then continued: "I would think that it will make itself clear in time. You could always ask him, of course, but it seems you are hesitant to do so, am I right?"

Yuuta nodded. He was surrounded by people who were uncannily eager to help him _and_ people who always seemed to know what he was thinking! They were people who gave him charity pie, though, so it was perhaps worth the fleeting feelings of being out of his depth. It was definitely worth it right now as Mizuki slid what had, until just now, been his own pie over to Yuuta's waiting spoon. He'd have to reply before it would be polite to eat it, though.

"I don't want to ask him, because..." Why _didn't_ he want to ask him? Because he knew aniki wouldn't tell him, after the moment was gone? Because he knew, somehow, that the answer would deepen the bizarre love that connected them further than it ought?

"Because I don't think he'd give me a straight answer, and I'd get mad, and then I'd never find out," Yuuta settled on. Pie awaited.

Later, when he got back to his room, he locked the door (he didn't want Mizuki walking in on anything else that might happen tonight) and immediately went to check his mobile phone for messages, not sure if he was hoping for something or nothing, but very sure that it was probably bad for him to be rushing to check like this.

There was one message.

It was from Nomura.

"Do you still have my game?"

Yuuta let out a sigh of something – relief, disappointment, who knew anymore – and texted back "No, Yanagisawa-senpai took it", and then threw his phone onto the bed, not bothering to watch where it bounced. Sitting down at his desk, he then wished he hadn't, because the love letters aniki had found earlier had been left there right in front of him, and he was right back to the beginning of the aniki loop again now.

What sort of brother sent a sibling love letters anyway? It wasn't fair; why did he have to deal with this sort of thing? He bet that no one else in the whole school was spending their Saturday night thinking about kissing their own brother, but but but then neither was he! Where had that come from! That hadn't even been in those letters, so there was no excuse except insanity, and aniki getting to him. He'd been betrayed by his own brain!

Just as he was seriously considering knocking his head a few times against the desk to wake himself up from whatever fog aniki had conjured around him, Yuuta's phone beeped and then vibrated off the bed, falling into the metal bin at its foot with a hollow clang. His heart was now beating this fast because of the loud noise and the surprise, of course.

There was one message.

It was from aniki.

"Are you thinking about me?" 


	4. Chapter 4

﻿_"Are you thinking about me?" _

Yuuta's heart was beating uncomfortably fast now; _how did aniki know_? Did he know he'd been thinking about kissing him, even if he hadn't meant to think it at all? In fact, why _had_ he been thinking about kissing aniki? It wasn't as if he actually wanted to. At all. Yuuta knew very little about kissing, and it looked kind of stupid, really – a bit wet and messy, and probably boring; so why was he interested in what aniki would taste like, and what his mouth would feel like? Why was aniki different to everyone else? Wait – why was he even thinking this at all? It was as if aniki was making him think these things on purpose, as part of some grand scheme to break him down. To break him down for _what_, Yuuta didn't quite know, but if it involved 'sexy' somewhere, it was bound to be bad news.

He was going to have to reply to this message. If he didn't, then aniki might assume that he wasn't in and wouldn't phone him up tonight after all; and even though Yuuta was a bit afraid of what kind of conversation they could end up having, there was something within him that really wanted to talk to him again. Whether it was to find out what he was thinking about their father, or to find out what aniki's thoughts were, or even just to see whether aniki would flirt with him again, Yuuta found himself feeling just a little excited at the prospect of receiving a call. His mind and his emotions were in complete conflict, but the resulting feeling, though this worried him, was surprisingly pleasant, as if he had something exciting and positive to occupy his time with now, when before there had only been trivialities.

How was he supposed to reply, though? Aniki would see right through a blunt "No", and Yuuta never really felt happy about lying outright anyway, so that wouldn't do, but neither would a straight out "Yes". Making things that easy for aniki was practically an invitation for... for, well, whatever it was that aniki wanted. Yuuta didn't know quite what it was, but he didn't think he was ready to invite aniki to do _anything_ to him just yet.

Just yet? He meant 'ever', of course.

Perhaps he could call aniki's bluff. Aniki thrived on catching people off-guard, so maybe Yuuta could surprise him and do the same. That _never_ happened, so there was no way aniki would be expecting it... if anything, he'd be expecting a flat-out denial. It seemed like a good plan.

"I'm thinking about kissing you. ;)"

The wink was very important, even if he _was_ just calling aniki's bluff.

Except, oh shit, this really wasn't seeming like such a good idea anymore. His phone had beeped back almost straight away, and the message was:

"Tongues or no?"

What was he meant to say to that! Why had he even thought joking with aniki was a good idea! Had he completely lost it today? Why hadn't he just said "No" and let things happen as they normally did? That was safe, and easy, and never involved tongues at all!

There was no way he could backtrack over this by saying he'd sent it to the wrong person, which would have been the most convenient thing, even if it wasn't true. What could he do to limit the damage?

"Not at all, stupid aniki. Why would anyone want to do that?"

That sounded okay. It sounded normal.

"I can show you, when you come home. It feels really good, and I like the idea of you feeling good, Yuuta..."

That _didn't_ sound normal. In a fit of panic, Yuuta fumbled and deleted all the messages aniki had sent him today, in case anyone ever decided to snatch his phone from him for fun. What if a teacher ever confiscated it? He didn't want a talking to from the lovely, well-meaning, but ultimately futilely-occupied nuns from the chapel about decent family relations! He didn't think a talking to would be enough to stop his stomach from jumping at aniki promising to make him feel good.

Oh God, what was going on? He _didn't_ want aniki to kiss him, and he most certainly didn't want to be anywhere near aniki's tongue, but his body, as well as his brain, was betraying him. It had been a while since he'd reacted like this to something someone had said to him, and it had just been a _text message_! It would be terrible if aniki had whispered it into his ear or even just said it out loud... but not actually terrible at all, if the single drop of liquid fire that suddenly heated him inside was any sort of sign.

Which it most definitely wasn't.

"I don't want you to show me anything at all! Go show someone else, or kiss your pillow or something. I can make myself feel good without you."

That had been a bad thing to say, though.

"Yes, and there isn't a day that goes by without my thinking about it... ;)"

The wink wasn't enough to assuage Yuuta's disquiet here. He was hoping it didn't mean what he thought it meant, but that was always going to be a futile hope when it came to aniki. A more pertinent question would be: was aniki joking?

It would be safer to assume he was.

"Che, pervert. This conversation's getting stupid. Are you going to call me or not?"

Yuuta didn't know if he really wanted aniki to call him _right_ now, though; he was too jumpy and flustered at present to deal with it very well at all, and that would be practically waving a white flag and admitting defeat right there and then. Maybe he'd do better after a calming shower or something, but _no_, taking his clothes off probably wasn't the best of ideas if he kept being attacked by images and thoughts of aniki.

He wasn't as relieved as he thought he'd be, though, when aniki replied:

"Perhaps not tonight... I'll call you tomorrow."

It was for the best, but he _had_ been wanting to talk to him, weirdness aside. Yuuta could accept weirdness coming from aniki, even if he was only getting weirder recently.

Well, he'd thought he could accept weirdness, until his phone buzzed again.

"Think of me when you make yourself feel good tonight."

Yuuta put his phone down, very carefully, onto the table next to his bed, and then flumped face down onto his pillows, smothering himself seeming a very good idea for perhaps half a second or so until he needed to breathe. Moaning to himself, he gripped his head with his hands and wondered if there was any way he could possibly undo everything that had happened in the last ten minutes.

Aniki had to be joking. He had to be. It was too ludicrous and _wrong_ for it to be anything but a joke in very bad taste. It was. It was it was it was. But the part of him that kept betraying him reminded him that even _he_ was starting to think about kissing his brother, and if that was happening, then it was entirely possible that aniki could be truly thinking the same, but without the chagrin that Yuuta was experiencing with it. And that would be dangerous.

But it was possible.

Moaning again, Yuuta found himself wondering what the hell he was supposed to do now. A normal person would be able to forget all about today and just get on with their homework, or wander down to the TV lounge and watch car chase shows, or settle down with their PlayStation and blow some things up, but all Yuuta could think of to do was keep lying face-down on his bed and hope that the universe would reset itself if he pleaded strongly enough.

Why hadn't he thought more carefully about what he'd been saying? It wasn't entirely his fault, since aniki twisted _everything_, but he could have provided him with less fodder for it. He could feel his cheeks getting warm as he saw the line asking him to think about him dancing across his eyelids. _Stupid_ aniki. How could he possibly have said that? And wasn't it selfish of him, to say that so that Yuuta _couldn't_ do... _that_, tonight, if he didn't want to think about aniki while he did? It was definitely selfish. Definitely. He could feel his body agreeing, and _that_ was selfish too, because he wasn't supposed to be feeling like this! He wasn't supposed to be lying on his bed on a Saturday night feeling too warm because his brother had sent him suggestive text messages.

Maybe he should send a message back saying "Stop it" and hope that he would. But, against everything that seemed good and right in the world, he didn't really want that at all. He didn't know if he _wanted_ aniki to keep saying things like this to him, but he didn't think he wanted him to stop completely, either; it seemed too final, somehow, as if a door that Yuuta might want to step through later would slam shut on him. He played a lot of video games, and you just couldn't leave any areas unexplored – there might be hidden treasure there.

Not that there could _possibly_ be any good in that particular door. There shouldn't be a door there in the first place – it should be a smooth, well-textured wall, simple in its being and not at all a temptation for nervous heroes.

In the game of their lives, Aniki was a dragon. Or, no – he was too subtle to be a dragon. Maybe a... well, maybe he was one of those sexy female generals who always ended up betraying you. But that was _wrong_. Oh so wrong. He was _not_ imagining aniki in red leather.

Yuuta allowed himself one last groan into his pillow, and then pulled himself up slowly, deciding that he couldn't allow himself to do any more thinking tonight. He'd maybe play a game that had no human characters in it at all for a while, until he'd calmed down enough to be seen in public, and then he'd go down and see if Yanagisawa was in the TV lounge. Talking to Yanagisawa would nullify any unwanted thoughts of aniki completely. That's what he hoped, anyway; if that didn't work, he _really_ had a problem, and it would be made all the worse by the fact that the only person in the entire world who he could talk to about it would be aniki. Not even Mizuki-san would be able to help him, and a world in which Mizuki-san couldn't help him was a scary, scary place, because Mizuki knew _everything_.

Everything but this.

No one could know about this.

After tonight, though, Yuuta would have worked it all out of his system, tomorrow would be another day, and there would be no more 'this'.

That night, he had dreams about Yanagisawa in red leather, and Mizuki flying space ships that were escaping from the intergalactic police. Space morphed into a castle, though, and there was aniki in red leather, and when he woke up, gasping, there was a new message on his phone, saying "Enjoy your dreams, Yuuta".

Yuuta had to hope that aniki didn't know he'd enjoyed the last one too much. 


	5. Chapter 5

﻿Yuuta woke up on Sunday morning thankful that he hadn't had any more dreams about aniki - one pair of pyjamas to add to the laundry pile was more than enough. It was just unfortunate that there was no way he could forget about what had been happening now, none at all; the pyjamas, balled into his laundry basket, and the text message wishing him sweet dreams were too _there_ to be ignored. His first instinct was to hope that last night had just been some sort of one-off thing, and that aniki would never again haunt his dreams or his phone, but there was only so many times one could operate on optimism alone, and Yuuta was beginning to learn that nothing to do with aniki was ever one-off.

Life had been _simple_ only a day ago! He'd actually been looking forward to going home for the summer and doing things with his family, but now, instead, he had four long weeks of just aniki for company. That in itself would probably have been bearable, if only aniki hadn't taken his flirting to a whole new level last night, making Yuuta question... well, everything about his entire world. He didn't know how he was ever meant to _stop_ questioning, either, especially not when he had other problems to work on too, like why aniki didn't love their father. If only aniki hadn't come to visit yesterday...!

A little voice – a member of the rebel faction that was gaining ground on taking him over – whispered to him that if aniki hadn't come, though, life would feel a lot more empty than it currently did. And didn't he enjoy feeling confused?

The voice was quite clearly evil, but Yuuta found that he couldn't really argue with it, so he chose to get out of bed and ignore it instead. If he kept busy, there was no chance of further ambushes. He hoped.

His morning passed pleasantly enough. He did his maths and physics homework, which sped time up because he quite enjoyed those subjects, once he actually sat down and started, and there were no distractions from his phone. Yuuta didn't even think about aniki again, in fact, until it reached lunch time and he was reminded of the discussion they'd had just before dinner the night before, which then made him wonder just when aniki would call him today. He was relieved to find that he didn't feel as anxious about receiving a call as he had last night – it even felt unimportant enough that he could leave his phone behind in his room when he went out to the tennis courts with Atsushi-senpai to hit a few balls around for an hour or so. Having a brief flashback to the dreams he'd had made him miss a deciding shot, and that was a bit embarrassing because it had _really_ been a miss, but all in all, Yuuta was proud of himself for being able to have a normal day where normal things had happened.

When he returned to his room after dinner, though, the first thing he did was check his phone. In case Yumiko or his mother had tried to call, of course. And he did still kind of want to talk to aniki, even though he didn't feel as excited about it tonight.

No missed calls, but there was one message.

It was from Yumiko.

"Shuusuke says to tell you that he's busy tonight and can't call. Expect something from him later this week. And Yuuta, don't be too sad about this summer, okay? I'll still be here, and Shuusuke's very excited to have you back, even if he has funny ways of showing it."

Yuuta would've thought that having a nice, normal message on his phone from a nice, normal person would've been a refreshing change, but the wayward voices in his head (any kind of voice in his head was bound to be bad news – wayward just took it to the next level) whispered seductively that maybe he was a little disappointed – _more_ than a little disappointed – that aniki wouldn't be calling tonight either. When asked for reasons, they suggested that he might quite like to hear his voice. This was the wrong answer, so Yuuta ceased negotiations. (Not that he'd ever have surrendered to peace talks anyway.)

Even though he was quite, quite sure that he wasn't pining after his brother's voice, Yuuta couldn't deny that right now he was feeling as if his birthday party had been cancelled. This was horribly intense for something as trivial as not receiving a phone call as expected, which worried him, but more important seemed to be the cake and balloons he'd been looking forward to. (Or maybe not balloons – no one should trust aniki with balloons ever again after last year...) What was wrong with him! Why was a simple conversation with aniki – okay, maybe scratch 'simple' – something to plan his day around, even subconsciously, when before, it had felt like a necessary evil to keep him happy until the next time he called. He even felt a little bad about having thought of aniki's calls as necessary evils!

This all begged the question, though: why, if he had been flirting mercilessly with him, was aniki putting off phoning him? Surely he'd be ringing as often as he could get away with (or more, since aniki could get away with anything)? He hadn't even sent him any messages today! Was this all a plot to make Yuuta paranoid? Or some sort of ruse to force him to make the next move? It had to be: aniki was always playing with his mind and enjoying it; he was probably getting bored with just sending indecent texts.

If this was true, then it meant Yuuta probably had the power to stop all of this now, if he didn't respond to aniki's bait. Never let it be said that Fuji Yuuta was easy to reel in!

Except, that was depressing, because Yuuta knew it wasn't true, and that he should get real or _be_ reeled. He was going to have to stand firm on this and not let his inner self get in the way as it so frequently did. If he could quash the feelings of wanting to hear and talk to his brother (since when had 'hear' been on that list? Those voices were rewriting his brain...!), then maybe things could go back to normal, since aniki would get the hint that Yuuta just wasn't interested. Interested in _what_, Yuuta really dreaded to think, but who needed to put labels on things like flirting and wanting to kiss your own brother?

Augh! Where had that come from, _again_! He didn't want to kiss aniki! Not at all!

He was obviously doomed to be a pawn in aniki's plan until some conclusion to whatever this was had been reached. Yuuta was a bit scared about what sort of conclusion _could_ be reached, but even that scared feeling was kind of pleasant. It figured that, with aniki at the helm, Yuuta's life was turning into one big oxymoron.

He wished he couldn't hear Mizuki-senpai's voice in his head, telling him "Love is full of contradictions, Yuuta-kun...", because one, there were too many voices in his head today, and two, _it was most definitely not love_. Everyone was trying to sabotage his life today, even when they weren't physically present!

There was obviously only one thing to do.

And that was to call aniki.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

"Oh, Yuuta, I wasn't expecting to hear from you – did you get nee-san's message?" Aniki sounded... flustered?

"I did, but I wanted to speak to you." Damn, that had come out wrong.

"Really?" Was that hope in aniki's voice? "What about? Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, everything's fine, I just wanted to... I don't know, chat for a while. If you're not busy." This was a lie, since nothing was fine at all, at least on the "I want to kiss you and maybe undress you" front, but oh shit what was that and where had it come from? Yuuta made a funny squeaky sound in surprise, too loud to be passed off as mere background noise.

"I thought your voice had already broken, Yuuuta?" Aniki sounded amused.

"It, er, has. I just, er, yeah. Stuff. So, are you able to talk right now?" Smooth.

"Actually, now's not so great. Can I call you tomorrow?"

"Er... yeah. Any time's good."

"Okay. Sweet dreams, Yuuta."

What on earth had happened there? Something had been off, although Yuuta couldn't pinpoint _what_, apart from the absence of anything bizarre and wrong. That in itself was weird, but there was something more to it. Had aniki really been busy? Maybe he had been; if it had been a plot to get him to call him, then he would have stayed to chat once Yuuta did call, wouldn't he?

This was really getting complicated.

Aniki didn't love their father; aniki had said what Yuuta suspected to be indecent things to him; Yuuta had had _dreams_ about aniki which he _knew_ to be indecent; and now aniki seemed to have pulled this all out from under him, leaving him with a crush – no no no, not a crush! – on his own brother and no way of doing anything about it when aniki was acting so strangely.

Could he ask Mizuki-senpai for help? "Mizuki-san, what do you do when you have inappropriate feelings for someone close to you?" But that would be a dreadful, dreadful conversation, for Mizuki would almost certainly think that Yuuta was talking about _him_, and the only thing worse than having a crush on aniki would be having a crush on aniki while Mizuki was being extra-nice to him to 'let him down' gently. At least, Yuuta assumed that that's what would happen. The world would become unbearably painful if it turned out that Mizuki had some sort of guy crush on him. Not that there was anything _wrong_ with Mizuki-senpai, of course, it was just that... well. Yuuta didn't know _what_ he wanted, as evidenced by the fact that he seemed to be wanting to cuddle with his own brother in bed. He didn't even feel remotely surprised that aniki wasn't a girl; that, he could accept, although it felt a little strange just because for all of his life he'd been expecting to fall in love with a girl and do all that stuff you did when you were adults and now maybe he wouldn't. Or maybe it was just that experimenting thing he'd heard about. But either way, what he _couldn't_ manage to accept was that aniki was, well, _aniki_, his own brother! There was _no_ good way to look at that fact. Even Mizuki-senpai, who collected data, probably wouldn't want to learn of those statistics!

Was tomorrow going to get even more complicated? Yuuta didn't see how it could, which was simultaneously relieving and depressing. Would aniki actually phone him tomorrow? It was all in his brother's hands now that he'd said he was busy. Busy with what? What if aniki already had a girlfriend or a boyfriend! It seemed unlikely, but he'd been cagey today...

Yuuta was saved from further introspection and worry by the arrival of a new message on his phone, however.

It was from aniki.

"I had some good dreams last night. Did you enjoy yours?"

The game was back on, if it had ever actually stopped, and if it had ever actually been a game. _Was_ it a game? Yuuta's fingers said 'maybe not anymore' as he punched out a response.

"I didn't know you owned a whip."

Actually, maybe it _was_ still a game. 


	6. Chapter 6

﻿_"I didn't know you owned a whip."_

Or, maybe it wasn't a game at all.

Aniki had responded with "I... don't? Was that enjoyable for you...?" and Yuuta wasn't sure what was going on anymore. He'd expected his brother to start talking about leather, or maybe spanking (although the thought of aniki saying things like that made him blush horrendously), not for him to sound... confused? Or, not quite confused, but certainly more _normal_ than Yuuta was used to. It sounded as if aniki was _humouring_ him. Had Yuuta made up their flirting game entirely on his own, in his head! That was impossible, right? Yuuta wouldn't imagine such a thing without very good reason, surely?

He'd deleted most of the messages that could have told him otherwise in his fit of panic the other night, though. All that remained was the messages leading up to "Think of me when you make yourself feel good tonight", which, however he looked at it, was actually most relieving, because there was no _way_ that aniki had meant that in any way other than flirtation. Absolutely no way. But... had he changed his mind? Did he not want to flirt with Yuuta anymore? He'd been distant and distracted on the phone, after all, and now he wasn't participating in what Yuuta had thought was a texting game.

"It wasn't so much enjoyable as it was weird." That was neutral. How would aniki react?

"I'm relieved. I'd never be able to hurt you like that, Yuuta."

Yuuta felt he should be glad that his world was going to be definitively whip-free from now on, but he was too preoccupied with the tone of aniki's message to be so. Aniki still wasn't committing anything!

"Er, I'm glad to hear it. Same goes for you, I guess. I thought you said you were busy?"

"I am. Good night, Yuuta."

Yuuta found himself unable to sleep properly that night. It was because he'd snacked just before bed, he told himself, and not because he was feeling insecure about aniki. The disturbing dreams did not return (he didn't remember dreaming at all), but when he awoke to the objectionable yet insistent beeping of his alarm clock, he found he was both tired _and_ in a state of unfortunate discomfort. His hurried shower was to mark out the rest of his day, as unwanted thoughts of aniki plagued him at the very worst and most shameful moments.

The day passed much as a regular Monday (maths and PE, but also art, which always frustrated Yuuta – he smudged things, or drew them at just the wrong angle, or forgot some important feature until it was too late, and he _hated_ making models out of clay or stupid toothpicks), but with added aniki. His brother was everywhere, it seemed; a phantom chuckle over his shoulder, an imagined touch across his neck, daydreams when he was supposed to be putting his all into hurdling in the late afternoon. A particularly vivid and unexpected image of aniki kissing him late at night had made him clip his right foot on the top of his final hurdle, and he'd come crashing down onto the track, the hurdle landing on top of him with a clatter and a muffled sort of pain.

He'd been sent to the sick room to be taken care of, but he'd just been told to lie on one of the beds until he felt less shaky (he'd hit his head really quite hard) and until the painkillers started to take effect (he'd scraped himself and given life to a new generation of bruises as well), and Yuuta daydreaming on painkillers was just a recipe for disaster. He'd wanted to leave and head to dinner early, because food always made things better, but he would never have left without permission of the nurse, who had gone to deal with a student who'd fainted at the other side of the building, so he was left there feeling a little spacey and _warm_ until her return. Images from his shower earlier, of aniki unbuttoning Yuuta's shirt and running his fingers down over his chest, kept washing over him, and he was too woozy to be able to properly shake them off. When the nurse finally arrived back, Yuuta was feeling too light headed for dinner to be an attractive proposition anymore, so he sloped off back to his room to lie down.

The first thing he did was check his phone.

Nothing.

Aniki might be ringing later, so he better take a nap now, he thought. He didn't want to be sleepy and woozy and therefore vulnerable if he did call. Who knew what he'd say if his inhibitions were down?

When he woke up at nine pm, his leg hurting again where he'd scraped it (the plaster was pulling at the hairs on his leg when his trousers moved against it, too, which was really distracting), aniki still hadn't rung him, or left any sort of message at all. What was going on? Aniki _always_ rang when he said he would, and _always_ took any possible opportunity to talk to him! Something was definitely up, but what was it?

He thought he'd have to take matters into his own hands, but how? The last time he'd phoned his brother, the conversation had been stilted and weird, and if he was fretting about it _now_, he didn't want to be experiencing it double if he phoned again. Besides, would aniki think him annoying? Aniki never seemed to worry about that sort of thing when he phoned Yuuta, but aniki never seemed to worry about _anything_ annoying he did to Yuuta. And really, Yuuta never did either; he'd just never tell anyone that.

Except, maybe he should.

"I like it when you call me up, aniki." He wrote that, and then erased it, thinking it seemed a little strange just out of the blue like that. It was also maybe a bit more honest than he wanted to be, when he hadn't yet come to terms with how he felt about what they were becoming. If they were becoming anything at all. It was stupidly complicated! Everything had been easier when aniki had said weird things to him and he'd just grumbled at him in response. Teenage brain chemistry was most troublesome.

He worked through a few more versions of the sentiment, before finally settling on "If you're worried about calling me for some stupid reason, you shouldn't be." It lacked the friendliness of his first attempt, but this one was much safer and said pretty much the same thing. Sort of. He pressed send, and was then surprised when his phone beeped and vibrated in his hand straight away, too quickly to be a response to his own message.

It was from aniki.

"I have some things I want to tell you, but over the phone will not do, I have realised. I shall tell you when we are alone together on Friday night. Is that all right?"

Yuuta felt stupid for having sent his message when he did. He hoped aniki would realise they'd sent them at the same time, else he'd look insensitive now. His phone beeped again, though, and he realised he should have given his brother more credit, than to have worried about such a thing.

"We appear to have a psychic message connection – isn't that wonderful? 3"

And then:

"As much as I know you're dying to hear my voice, I shall have to stand firm on imparting my words to you in person. You can last until Friday, right...? ;)"

Waiting 'til Friday was going to be very, very trying, Yuuta decided. As soon as he'd seen the words "I have some things I want to tell you", his pulse had started to race, and his condition hadn't been helped by the jolt of excitement that had run through him at "alone together on Friday night" – it all sounded as if aniki was serious again, and Yuuta's mind was leaping through possibilities of what he could be told, and what could happen afterwards. Some of the possibilities disturbed him a little bit (a particularly vivid one was aniki confessing his undying love over popcorn and a dreadful chick flick, and then pulling him in for a movie-style kiss), and he was feeling very unsettled by all of the uncertainty, but, as his brain had told him before, he actually quite enjoyed being confused...

At least he'd been given some warning, so that he could use the rest of the week to work out how he felt and what he wanted. If aniki _were_ to make confessions of love, as doubtful as that actually was, Yuuta had to be prepared! If he wasn't, he'd stutter and get embarrassed and say something painfully stupid regardless of whether it was a rejection or an acceptance, and for his first true excursion into love, Yuuta wanted to be smooth and in control. That would only ever be a far-off hope, of course (the being smooth and cool, not aniki being his first love!), because everything sincere that Yuuta tried to do ended up with him nervous and pink-cheeked, but time to think could only ever be a good thing.

Of course, the likelihood was that aniki wanted to tell him something else entirely – would it be about their father...? – and this was really quite relieving, but Yuuta figured that it couldn't hurt to think over all the possibilities.

Did he actually think he could say yes to any invitation of aniki's...? He really wasn't sure. Just the fact that a few days ago he would've scoffed and told him to stop being weird if he _did_ say he wanted Yuuta to be his boyfriend (_that_ sounded bizarre) made him wonder just how _much_ affection and interest in his brother had been hidden under the surface – would there be more to come, later? Would he eventually come to love aniki as more than just a brother, as more than just the person who'd accompanied him for his entire thirteen years of existence? Yuuta felt scared at the prospect, but he didn't feel a lot of the other emotions he thought he should be experiencing when thinking about falling in love with his brother.

He had three and a half days left to figure out what he felt before aniki and Yumiko would be driving him and his belongings home for the summer. He'd have to be very careful with his thinking, because if he messed up, he and aniki would still have to spend four long weeks together, and it would be awful if relations between them were strained. Would his brother take rejection well? If it was Yuuta, then probably he would, just because aniki seemed remarkably sacrificing for him, but Yuuta didn't want aniki to be sad for the entire holiday. Nor did he want to be entering into something that would escalate into kissing and touching and... _more_, just to make aniki happy, though. Yuuta's more was very important to him.

Three and a half days. He swore to make the most of them; as Mizuki would no doubt tell him if asked, love was serious business.

When Yuuta fell asleep that night, he was holding Bun-Buns more carefully than usual, and he had dreams of doing _something_ with aniki in a big pool of popcorn. He would spend all of the next day trying to remember exactly what that something had been.

He would also be wondering whether it was something he'd actually like to do.

Without the popcorn, of course. That was sticky.

The next few days would be troubling for Yuuta. 


	7. Chapter 7

﻿Tuesday passed slowly for Yuuta. All through school he was preoccupied with the small flashes of last night's dream that he could remember (and even then he wasn't quite sure whether he was making some of them up or not – would aniki ever have said "I wish my muscles were as well-developed as yours, Yuuta..." even in a dream? Maybe that one was wishful thinking...), and most of his lessons ended up being devoted to trying to pull out the strands of memory that were _just_ out of reach. What was happening to him? Last week, he would have been horrified to find himself just dreaming about aniki, let alone trying to remember exactly what he had or hadn't been doing with his tongue!

... He really hoped his teachers couldn't tell he was thinking about what aniki had been doing with his tongue.

After classes were over, he was dragged out to the street courts by Yanagisawa and Kisarazu-senpai, who both said that he seemed distracted and was he having any trouble with girls because it _looked_ like he was. Yuuta stammered his way through an unconvincing denial-but-thank-you-for-your-concern, and spent the rest of the afternoon paranoid that everyone could see that he was having indecent thoughts about his brother. He lost his game with Fudoumine's Ibu miserably, which was embarrassing because the last time they'd met, Shinji had done his best to ignore him, and now Yuuta had lost to him! It was better to have lost than for him to be thinking too carefully about what Yuuta might think of aniki, though...

When his senpai finally decided to head back to St Rudolph, Atsushi pulled Yuuta aside for a moment and said "If a girl's throwing you this far off your game, you should talk to someone about it." He threw off Yuuta's feeble protestations with a comradely pat on the back. "It doesn't have to be me – just choose someone who you don't mind talking to about private things. As long as it's not Yanagisawa. He gets stuck just on the _word_ 'girl', and you can never get him to shut up after that."

Yuuta nodded, and mumbled something along the lines of "I'll think about it", but really, he knew that he didn't want to discuss it with anyone right now. This was _private_ – or, at least, just between him and aniki. Yuuta thought he should probably be strong enough to cope with working things out on his own, and even if he wasn't, it had to be better than talking too much and accidentally sharing information that _no one_ would want to hear. The thought that the sisters at the chapel were always there for pastoral care did cross his mind, but only very briefly. It would be a fiasco if he went, and although Yuuta wanted to be famous on his own merits, being known as the boy who'd accidentally told the sisters at his Catholic school that he wanted to do naughty things with his brother was not how he wanted to do it.

It sucked that his tennis was off. He was going to have to do some extra-hard thinking on his own tonight so that his game would get back on track, since there was no way he could avoid playing tennis again until he went home on Friday. He didn't really _want_ to have to avoid playing tennis, either. It was (he had thought) the only thing in his life at the moment that made proper, actual sense; but now it, too, had fallen, it seemed. Why wasn't it Friday already! Yuuta didn't want to have to have a Talk with Mizuki at the end of tomorrow's practice about why he was missing more balls than he was hitting. He especially didn't want to have a Talk with Mizuki about Ways They Could Overcome It, because Mizuki was really far too good at guessing what was wrong with people, and Yuuta didn't want to be at the mercy of that sort of skill for too long, or any time at all at the moment. He hoped Kisarazu-senpai wouldn't mention anything about "girl troubles" to Mizuki, because while Yuuta didn't think Mizuki knew that much about girls, he was very sure that his senpai would take it upon himself to help him anyway, and everything would start to come crashing down once he was unable to spin a complex series of lies about a girl in his class or some other such story. Yuuta was terrible at lying.

When they got back to school, they all headed to the dining hall (food was more important than showering) and Yuuta was spared any more talk of anything to do with romance (or even just sex, which Yuuta knew was different, though he still wasn't sure quite how yet). The main topic of discussion ended up being what they'd be doing during the holidays; Yuuta stayed as quiet as he could and ate his pizza. Someone – _someone_ – would always start teasing him if his brother was mentioned at all in conversation, and Yuuta didn't think he could manage to fend it off properly today when there was actually _reason_ to be teasing him about aniki this evening, even if no one knew it but him.

He survived until dessert, which was unfortunately not pie. Strawberry shortcake was, he wanted to think, just as good, but really it wasn't, because firstly, it wasn't pie, and secondly, it made him think about aniki, although he wasn't sure quite _why_. Perhaps the popcorn in his dream had been strawberry-flavoured... it certainly _sounded_ like something his subconscious would create for him. But that was bad, because his subconscious had created other things for him as well, and _oh no_ – he suddenly remembered exactly what it was that aniki had been doing in his dream, triggered by the strawberry, and someone was bound to notice his ears turning red if he didn't escape right now...!

Hastily announcing something about needing a shower, Yuuta managed to make his exit _and_ steal (although that was really too harsh a word) Nomura's shortcake from his plate as he passed, for extra rations. He'd missed dinner the previous night, and he was a growing boy, after all. Just, he wished, as he hurried back to his room, that _he_ was in control of what grew and when! A shower was impossible now, because he'd end up thinking about what it was that aniki had done in his dream, and _augh_, he had to stop thinking about it! Not because he didn't enjoy thinking about it, but because that was the _problem_. He _was_ curious about the way he was feeling, but Yuuta thought that he wasn't yet at the stage where he could just let go and run with exactly what his body wanted him to do. He still needed to think about it a little more.

Even if his body seemed already to have decided for him.

And his brain.

There really wasn't much left of him to _make_ a stand. And he didn't know if he wanted to make one anyway. Why was this all so confusing! It was wrong to be thinking about aniki like this, but he couldn't stop! Part of him wanted someone else to just make a decision for him, so that he wouldn't have to live with the inner monologue anymore, but the only person who had that power right now was aniki, and letting him decide anything was a bad idea. Even if letting him do that would lead to the wonderful thing in the dream...

It was lucky that there were random people in the corridor right now, because otherwise Yuuta would have whacked his head repeatedly against the wall to make the thought chains stop. He was then saved from doing that in the privacy of his own room, too, by a small box that had been left outside his door, as it derailed all sorts of thoughts altogether. It was perfectly square, and wrapped in toilet roll, which seemed a strange choice of concealment, but Yuuta certainly wasn't going to pass negative judgement immediately (he had had to wrap Mizuki's last birthday present in tin foil, after all).

There was a battered-looking tag attached to the top with sellotape. It said, in pink writing, "From a well-wisher".

Yuuta's first thought was that a pink pen would attribute the box firmly to Mizuki, but would Mizuki-senpai ever wrap something in _toilet roll_? And, furthermore, would Mizuki-senpai ever give a gift _anonymously_? That went against everything Yuuta knew about him...

Letting himself into his room, holding Nomura's shortcake in his mouth so he could both hold the box and not fumble his key, Yuuta sat down on his bed and set the box on his knees. He was thankful that it had, if only temporarily, distracted him from thinking about aniki and his dream. Maybe he could actually have his shower after this!

He took a bite of the shortcake and then set it down carefully on his bedside table, not wanting to lose a single crumb, before seeing to the box. Toilet roll, he had to admit, was certainly easier to rip off than fancy wrapping.

The mystery gift was a magic eight ball.

The box said things in English that Yuuta didn't understand, but once he removed the packaging, it seemed that the actual ball was in Japanese, which was... good, he supposed. But... why a magic eight ball? Who on earth did he even know in school that would give him a magic eight ball?

The why was explained when he discovered that the battered-looking tag had something written on the reverse side. It said "To help you in your decisions".

... Who knew that he had an important decision to make? Important questions to ask? Worries harboured in his bosom? (No, actually that was something Mizuki-senpai would say...) It was a little bit creepy, not least because none of the gift looked at all as if aniki had had anything to do with it. Yuuta would have been relieved if it had been aniki, because it _felt_ like something aniki would give him, as some sort of stupid joke.

Why did life just keep getting weirder!

There was obviously going to be no acceptable answer to this question, now or ever, so, allowing himself a very small sigh, Yuuta turned his attention to his brand new magic eight ball. Maybe it _would_ be rewarding to ask it his questions about aniki.

"Ball, am I falling in love with my brother?" He said this very quietly, and his eyes flicked to both the window and door as he did, just in case.

The ball replied, "Signs point to yes".

Okay, it was just a stupid ball. And... well, maybe he could deal with falling in love with aniki. Maybe.

"Ball, does aniki love me?"

"Without a doubt".

That, he probably already knew. But it was nice to make sure. Not that a children's toy could actually make sure for him, of course. But...

"Ball, is aniki going to tell me he loves me on Friday?"

"Cannot predict now".

That figured. Aniki was definitely unpredictable, and he probably had some sort of anti-eight ball aura or something. Time for a different question.

"Ball, is anything going to happen between aniki and me this summer?"

The ball replied, "Better not tell you now".

That sounded... ominous? And as if something _was_ going to happen. Yuuta reminded himself that it was just a toy, but he couldn't help feeling as if something had been decided anyway. Was he powerless to stop whatever it was that was happening to them? He _could_ just refuse to give in, maybe, and he could just refuse to think about it whenever it crept into his mind, but was it worth it, when his entire body, and even a fortune-telling device, were telling him to run with his instincts? Yuuta didn't know if he should deny nature; would he end up unhappy if he refused himself what he wanted? Even if what he seemed to want was something he shouldn't?

"Reply hazy, try again".

Just after he'd chucked the eight ball into a random corner, his phone beeped.

"Don't let falling in love with me distract you from tennis!" Because of course someone from the street courts had told aniki that he'd lost to Ibu-san.

That night, Yuuta had dreams that he most definitely _did_ remember in the morning. 


	8. Chapter 8

﻿"Aniki, what are you doing...?"

Shuusuke presses up against Yuuta's back and continues unbuttoning Yuuta's shirt from behind, nimble fingers making it seem effortless. "Loving you," he says, right by Yuuta's ear. "You know you want me to..."

"Er," Yuuta says. "Can't you just buy me a game or something?" He is, however, distracted by Shuusuke's warm breath playing over his neck very, very gently, and he knows that Shuusuke is right: he does want him to, even though he shouldn't.

"This will be much better than a game..." Shuusuke purrs, again right by his ear, and now Yuuta doesn't doubt it. His shirt is hanging open, and aniki's fingers are playing over his chest, and it's already better than most of his game collection. Everything from last year, at least.

Shuusuke licks his neck, very slowly, and then gently blows on his skin, making Yuuta tingle from the slight chill. "Is there anything you'd like me to do, Yuuta?" He's still trailing his finger tips over Yuuta's torso, and it feels more intense because he can't actually see aniki; all he can do is feel him behind him; feel him nuzzling at his neck and whispering things into his ear. "Any fantasies of me? Because," he says, slipping his hands below the waistband of Yuuta's trousers, "I'll do anything you've dreamed of me doing. Anything, Yuuta..."

All Yuuta can do for a moment is concentrate, very very hard, on aniki's hands, flush to his skin, resting on his lower stomach, movement restricted until he decides to actually unbutton Yuuta's trousers as well.

Yuuta tries to say something, but his voice squeaks instead and Shuusuke chuckles in his ear; a low, rich sound, like dark chocolate would sound if it could laugh. Aniki is chocolate and velvet and silk, and Yuuta doesn't know how he's meant to refuse such a combination. No one would blame him, he thinks. He hopes.

He tries again to speak, and is more successful this time. "There was... there was, ah, something you did in..."

"In another dream?" Shuusuke prompts, massaging Yuuta's abdomen with the palms of his hands and teasingly licking his ear lobe when Yuuta nods.

"In... in another dream, yes. You were..."

"... mmn, what was I doing, Yuuta?"

"Er, you were... ah, with your mouth..." Yuuta thinks that aniki must be able to feel his face getting hot, even behind him.

"I was kissing you...?" Shuusuke sounds like he's smirking, and Yuuta feels an exotic cocktail of excitement and embarrassment. Aniki is going to make him say it, even though it's more than evident that he'd rather not.

"... kind of..." Yuuta mumbles. He would have shuffled his feet, had aniki not been wrapped behind him.

"'Kind of', hmm?" Shuusuke chuckles in his ear again, like velvet on silk. "Would you like me to undo your trousers, is that it?"

Yuuta nods, cheeks burning. When Shuusuke does not seem to be moving his hands, though, he is forced to nod again, and say "... yes."

Aniki slips his hands back out, trailing his fingers up Yuuta's stomach as he does so, and then deftly undoes the button and unzips him; all, again, without looking. Yuuta knows he's aroused, because he can feel him pressed up behind him, and this just makes Yuuta's condition worse. How has aniki made him ache like this in only a matter of minutes?

Yuuta thinks that Shuusuke's going to play with him a little more, but Shuusuke surprises him by easing his trousers over his hips and letting them fall onto his feet with a soft sound. Yuuta feels more exposed than he would have liked, but he's soon distracted by aniki rubbing him through his underwear, and then it soon stops to matter at all, even when Shuusuke's eased his boxer shorts down as well. Yuuta steps out of both at aniki's direction, and then sits down on the bed, back against the wall, still wearing his open shirt.

Shuusuke joins him on the bed; he is still fully dressed, but the thin material of his own trousers doesn't leave much to Yuuta's imagination, which is already spinning in super revolutions.

"I remember you tasting delicious, Yuuta..." he says, and then he lowers his head but not his eyes, and...

This dream haunted Yuuta for all of Wednesday. From the moment he awoke, gasping and drenched in sweat, to the moment he drifted off to sleep that night, after finally giving in and reliving the dream with his own hand, it never left his consciousness. He had only vague recollections of his lessons, and barely less vague memories of talking with his friends. Afternoon tennis practice had been a joke, and Mizuki had sent him away after half an hour, telling him not to return until he'd got whoever it was who was making him lose it completely out of his system. Yuuta couldn't remember if he'd sounded amused or angry. Knowing Mizuki, it was probably a mixture of the two; he'd mellowed a little bit after their defeat to Seigaku, but only a little bit. Yuuta was probably lucky that Mizuki would have four weeks to forget about his bad performance before club started again.

When he woke on Thursday, he felt almost disappointed that he'd not had any similar dreams. All that had happened last night had been a crazy man in a hamster suit running about with spoons, and however he looked at it, it just didn't have the excitement value that oral pleasurings from aniki did. Probably _nothing_ did, which worried Yuuta more than a little bit. He was more aware of what was going on around him today (at least so far, anyway), but he was finding he was missing the daydream haze of yesterday, and he just couldn't make that seem like a good thing; not when it was _aniki_. He was going to _have_ to sort himself out – and today! – because tomorrow, aniki and Yumiko would be picking him up to go home, and one or both of them was bound to notice that he was acting strangely if he was still thinking about aniki in ways he shouldn't.

He needed some way of not thinking about aniki, but... the dreadful, dreadful thing was that Yuuta didn't think he did want to stop. Was he going to have to accept that he was attracted to his own brother?

"Signs point to yes" replied the mysteriously-gifted magic eight ball from Tuesday. Yuuta threw it back into its corner.

So. If he really actually was attracted to aniki, which was what it looked like, then... well, what was he meant to do? He didn't think that there was any way it could ever be something that anyone would approve of, and that sat uneasily with Yuuta. And – even if he decided he was going to allow himself to accept what was happening to him for what it was, there was no way he could actually _tell_ aniki how he was feeling, because what if he was wrong and aniki _didn't_ mean his flirting in any serious way? Yuuta would feel like a freak! He'd never be able to look aniki or their mother in the eye ever again!

It might seem okay if aniki did mean everything he said, though. And he _had_ said that there was something he wanted to tell him when he came home. And it had sounded important. And aniki had said they'd be alone...

Maybe Yuuta would let himself be seduced, if aniki wanted to do it. He'd wanted to do it in yesterday's dream, and Yuuta certainly hadn't minded then, so maybe it wouldn't be terrible if it did actually happen...

There was no way that Yuuta would make the first move, though. He had to promise himself at least that, else he'd lose part of his pride, and really, there wasn't that much left of it at the moment, so he couldn't stand to lose any more. But if aniki confessed some sort of stupid undying love, maybe Yuuta would say that he loved him back, and they could go from there. What would aniki be expecting, though? He'd want Yuuta to kiss him, wouldn't he? Would he want Yuuta to do what he had done in Yuuta's own dream? Would Yuuta want to do it? These were all important, pertinent questions!

As Thursday drew to a close, Yuuta came to the eventual conclusion that he wouldn't mind doing that sort of thing, maybe, if it would please aniki. He packed all of his nicest clothes in the case he was taking home so that he would be wearing something good if aniki did want to undress him. He also packed breath mints, and the aftershave his mother had bought for him just after his birthday despite the day he'd have to start shaving being at least a few years away; it smelled nice, and aniki probably liked it when things smelled good. He could have gone to ask Mizuki for some actual cologne, but that would have raised too many awkward questions, and besides, there was a chance that Mizuki _was_ angry with him for his awful performance at practice yesterday.

Yuuta went to bed still feeling a bit confused about everything, but at least, he thought, he had decided how he was going to deal with his feelings for aniki. If aniki did something, then Yuuta would probably go with it and do things back – but if aniki did nothing, then neither would Yuuta. It seemed like a good plan, and Yuuta was pleased with it.

It didn't quite solve the problem of what he was meant to do if he ended up thinking about Tuesday night's dream when he was actually _with_ aniki, though. But that was a problem he could figure out tomorrow during class, for tomorrow was a half day, and so Yuuta had 'til lunch time to iron out any creases.

More pressing, for the moment, was whether to pack the eight ball or not. 


End file.
